"Overcoming Presentism and Other Lessons Learned from Block
Teaching"
By Alexandra Korros, History Department

Once upon a time, when I was a graduate student applying for a grant
supporting my
dissertation, the foundation asked me to explain how my historical research was
interdisciplinary. Since I always assumed that educated people knew that history was
the most interdisciplinary of disciplines, I was surprised at the question. Finally, to get
my money, I wrote that my work (political history) was “political science of the past.” My simplistic answer was satisfactory and I received the funding.

Yet, the question they asked is fundamental to studying history. Too many people
assume that historians compile and teach lots of facts which need to be memorized for
use in Trivial Pursuit games or “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Because we live in a
world of increasing specialization, it is easy to believe that studying history has very little
to do with any other discipline. Yet, historians do more than simply communicate facts
to our students; we attempt to make them think critically and ask questions about
process and causation. No longer am I as naive as I was some thirty odd years ago. I
have learned that students are as prone to compartmentalizing as foundations.

Once, while attempting to teach about the problems of 5th century BCE Athenian
democracy, a student asked me if the Plato we were discussing in class was “the same
guy” he was learning about in his philosophy class. While I have joked about this
particular episode on many occasions, it also forced me to realize that far too many of
our students were unaware how their studies related to one another. Moreover, I
grew concerned that if students tended to compartmentalize the subjects in the core
curriculum, we were less likely to succeed in teaching them to think critically “outside
the box” so that they could learn to understand and solve problems as “process”
questions, rather than single manifestations of a particular fact or event.

Instead of just bemoaning this unfortunate phenomenon, I have been part of an effort to
try to solve this problem through example. Although there are many ways of tackling
this issue, one approach we have taken in the University Scholars/HAB Programs is
through block teaching. During the past six years, Paul Colella and I have been
teaching Western Civilization and Philosophy together to honors students. For both of
us, block teaching has become one of the most gratifying aspects of our many years in
the classroom.

Our collaboration is based on a common belief that by giving students the opportunity
to study the development of ideas within their historical context, we can enrich their
historical and philosophical understanding. Moreover, when two faculty share the
classroom, we are able to show students that we, their teachers, also learn from one
another, often generating new ways of approaching material on the spot. We both
teach with the aim of demonstrating how philosophical ideas can arise out of the context
of the times in which their formulators lived. Further, we both use art and literature to
emphasize that historians and philosophers utilize other disciplines in order to expand
knowledge of their own.

Fortunately, History 133 (Western Civ I) and Philosophy 100 (Ethics as an
Introduction to Philosophy) are easy to pair assuming that the philosophy instructor is
willing to select philosophers who chronologically “fit” into the period covered (1550
BCE to 1550). Our task was made even easier because the common text for
Philosophy 100 is Plato’s Republic, or another of his dialogs, while my first “stop” in
Western Civilization has always been the world of the ancient Greeks. Occasionally,
we have also taught a second sequence, matching Western Civ II with Theory of
Knowledge (Philosophy 290), covering the period from the late 16th century to the
present.

Here is how it works. We schedule our classes back to back and list the sections as
“BL,” mandating that students registering for one must take the other. In addition, we
commit ourselves to being in the classroom for both periods. Thus, in the course of the
past six years, I have taken Philosophy 100 five times and Philosophy 290 twice. Paul
could say the same thing about my classes! What an education we have had and we
hope that our students have enjoyed a similar experience. I freely admit to having
studied very little philosophy as an undergraduate and graduate student, so that while I
could reel off most important philosophers’ dates, my knowledge of their ideas was
based on summaries contained in textbooks. Thus, this experience has not only
enriched my teaching in block, but it has changed what I say and do in the classrooms
where I go it alone.

One of our primary goals is to try to make students think more analytically by
participating in class discussion. All of us know how hard it can be to foster that kind
of interaction. Yet, because we spend so much time together in block, it is often easier
to get those discussions going since students can bring their history to philosophy and
vice versa. It is also exciting because if a discussion is really going well, we don’t have
to end the first class at exactly twenty after the hour, we can keep going.

In addition, Paul and I will often alter how we present our material based on what has
happened in that day’s class. If one of us presents a point that complements another’s
idea, each of us has altered either the emphasis of what we will say or do in the second
period. Moreover, since we are both there, we often decide who should go “first”
based on the way the material is playing out, rather than because my section is
scheduled for 11:30 a.m. and Paul’s for 10:30 a.m. Often each of us abdicates a bit of
our time to the other so that there is a more natural flow to the class. Thus, the break
between classes doesn’t always occur exactly at 11:20 a.m.

As I write, it is early in the fall semester, but let me offer an example of how the
readings in block create a special synergy. The students’ first reading
assignments for philosophy are Sophocles’ Theban Plays and The Republic. For me, students read
Homer’s Iliad, in addition to their textbook, documents book, and social history
reader. Thus, when Paul discusses Plato’s very strong opinions on the place of poetry
in Greek society, the students will have already read two important examples of Greek
poetic literature. Later I ask them to discuss an article about gender roles in Greek
society, emphasizing the segregation of male and female lives. Because of their
exposure to Greek literature and philosophy, the students will be able to understand
why Greek views of homosexuality were so different from those of our own time.

As an historian, I am often dismayed by students’ “presentism,” i.e., their tendency to
assume that the values of the past were identical to our own, and to judge the past by
what they assume have always been universal “truths.” For example, students are
puzzled that the Greek gods evidence so few of the traits that they associate with
religious belief–morality, ethical principles, charity. Yet, rather than my simply saying,
that among the Greeks such ideas were the province of philosophy, they are actually
reading The Republic–learning to understand what “justice” meant to Socrates and
Plato. As they move on to read Hellenistic, Roman and then medieval philosophy,
rather than being told that Judaism and then Christianity combined religion and ethics,
they have to grapple with the works that embody that process themselves. As we
move from the medieval into the Renaissance, they too proceed from Aquinas to Pico
de Mirandola and Machiavelli, once again coming to grips personally with how the
concerns of the secular world re-emerged as primary goals of philosophers in the 15th
century. In this manner, the assigned and additional readings accentuate how their
philosophy course enhances their knowledge of history, also giving students the
opportunity to examine how the ethical issues they encounter in philosophy actually play
out within a historical setting.

As a consequence of block teaching, I have gotten to know my students much more
quickly than in courses in which I meet for 3 hours per week. Although I do not always
teach the students in subsequent classes, there are many whom I see and hear from on
a regular basis because we became close after one semester in block. They often tell
me that they look for connections in all their other classes as well and that, although they
did not always feel that way while they were taking the class, they appreciate block
even more in retrospect.

What have I learned from block teaching? First of all, it has intensified my respect in
our core curriculum. I have come to believe that our core is crucial in making a Xavier
education distinctive. Beyond that, my first-hand experience with the common courses
in the philosophy core allows me to explore new questions with my students in a
manner quite different than if I simply “hoped” that they remembered what they learned
in their philosophy classes. Moreover, I am convinced that by knowing what our
colleagues are doing in their core courses outside of our own departments, we can build
on what our students learn just as we build our advanced classes on our own
departmental prerequisites. The best way to convince our students that ideas and
processes don’t exist in a vacuum is for them to experience those inter-relationships in
their own learning. Further, we can enrich our classrooms by utilizing that knowledge in
our own teaching, thus causing our students to bring both the facts and the methods
they have learned in other classes to our own.

I recall some old adage that those who teach learn as much in the process as those who
are their students. In my case, I have had that experience several times over, I have
learned more from teaching block than I could have imagined, and every year brings
new ideas, new interactions with students and a real excitement to teaching my
component of the core curriculum. The challenge for those of us who teach the
introductory core courses is finding ways to keep them fresh. Block teaching has
allowed me to find new ideas to emphasize every semester, it has given me new ideas
about how to teach and challenged me to bring what we can do in the block to my
students in my other classes. Thus my search for finding ways to teach students to think
in an interdisciplinary manner has probably affected my teaching even more than their
learning. Sometimes old adages are more accurate than we might think!